SUSAN CAMPBELL: Changes to HUSKY D will hurt patients who need help most

The timing of the state's application to change their eligibility requirements for HUSKY D, the Medicaid program for low-income adults, couldn't be worse for Brett Stone.

Stone is a 25-year-old Marlborough man with a rare congenital condition, Goldenhar syndrome. He has no jaw or ear on his right side. He also has scoliosis, spinal fusion and migraines, among other ailments. His whole life has been spent preparing for or recovering from expensive surgeries, which to be effective, must be performed at a certain age.

In other words, timing is everything for Stone.

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For adults with low incomes like him, Connecticut seeks to add an asset limit of $10,000, and to include parents' income and assets for applicants under age 26 who live with a parent, or who are declared a dependent on someone's income taxes. Officials say changing the requirements could save $50 million next year -- though it's hard to see precisely how they came up with that figure. If the state is successful, Stone will lose his insurance, and his chance for much-needed surgeries, as well. He fears he might be stranded between surgeries, with, say, an ear that's only partly rebuilt, or worse.

Advocates and others say a change in eligibility requirements could eliminate insurance coverage from roughly 13,000 people like Stone, though that's the state's guess and the number could be higher.

Connecticut awaits the ruling of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. If the CMS approves, the new guidelines would be applied immediately to pending and new enrollees, and within a few months for those currently covered.

But precisely who will review those applications?

Attorneys from the New Haven Legal Assistance Association have filed a motion to block the waiver, as part of a class action suit regarding delays in processing Medicaid applications in the state. Advocates say that the state agency charged with overseeing the care of these residents -- the Department of Social Services -- is incapable of handling any more paperwork in their antiquated processing system. Already, applications sit untended for weeks -- some of them long past the federally-mandated time frame.

It gets worse. Last month, a "quantity of unprocessed applications and redetermination forms" was found in Hartford's regional office, according to a letter sent from DSS Commissioner Roderick L. Bremby to Gov. Malloy's chief of staff, Mark Ojakian. This at a state agency that administers roughly a third of the state budget, and serves 700,000 people in nearly a half-million households.

In other words, this is one big fish, and it's floating on its back.

DSS serves from of the state's most vulnerable citizens. There are no accusations of evil intent. The department is simply woefully behind, ridiculously understaffed, and incapable of meeting the state's current needs.

But this won't be fixed by jettisoning a medically vulnerable population off the insurance rolls. If you don't want to consider the immorality of that, think of the economics. Even without insurance, low-income adults - those who've been denied coverage because of the change in eligibility, or those left floundering while applications sit untended -- will still need health care.

Without coverage, these folks will most likely flood the state's emergency departments. Dialing 911 will replace a preventive visit to the doctor. Every time the big red fire truck goes on a medical call, that's your tax dollars at work. Some of these low-income adults are -- like Stone -- just a few dollars away from homelessness, and homelessness costs the rest of us far, far more that meeting this population's health care needs now.

As Stone said, "It just freaks me out that at any time CMS could make their decision, and I'm screwed."